


Around the Fire

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Supernatural Hunters, Witches, magic will eat you from the inside out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:55:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’ve heard that one of them is big as a bear and twice as nasty while the other is as thin as rail half-used up by his own magic.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Around the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> For my very dear Bettiebloodshed's prompt: Loki/Thor as Van Helsing like vampire hunters. 
> 
> Warning: Contains magical gore.

“I’ve heard that one of them is big as a bear and twice as nasty while the other is as thin as rail half-used up by his own magic.” 

The fire flickered, casting long shadows on the walls of the tavern. The old men of the village sat in a cluster around the flames, their sons behind them and their grandsons at their feet. The women were doubtless arranged much the same in the village hall, soaking in the collected warmth of bodies on the fiercely cold autumn night. 

“Heard from where?” Challenged Olaf, whose nose had gone cherry red from too much beer and the heat of the fire. 

“From the market.” Dietrich replied calmly, tapping his pipe down. “They came through Brumtown in the spring, killed a beast there that was stealing children.” 

“Fevered imaginations.” Olaf dismissed. “Just another set of con men taking money from the superstitious.” 

“I don’t know.” Sean frowned, fiddling with the edges of his great fur cloak. 

The rest of the men fell into silence, awaiting what the priest might say. He was new to the village, a slight man with a thick head of black curls and only the rough beginnings of a beard. Though he ran the small church that stood on the edges of the village, it was widely understood that he would also cast runes or spill the blood of a goat if required. 

“You don’t know what?” Prodded Dietrich when nothing more was forthcoming. 

“I know that there are creatures more than bear and wolf in the woods.” The cloak shifted, the silver clasp catching the light as Sean drew it even closer around him. “Hillary wasn’t killed by anything with claws. If there are men willing to hunt what lies in the shadows, then we could do worse than calling them in.” 

“How do you know it wasn’t an animal?” Olaf scoffed though he had set down his beer and no longer smiled. 

“I know of no beast that digs in only two teeth and drains the lifeblood from a strong young woman.” Sean pinned Olaf with a clear eyed look. “I went with the women to prepare her for burial. There was not another mark on her. Only those two wounds clear as day. I know not what stories you tell here, but where I was raised there is only one thing that kills like that.” 

The great wooden door of the tavern shook under the pounding of a fist. All the men dropped their hands to their daggers and cudgels. Henrick, son of the tavern keep and strongest man in the village, crossed the room to stand by the door. 

“We saw your fire!” A booming voice rang out. “We’re travellers caught out in this snow. We have good coin to pay in return for a little food and a place to sleep this night.” 

“What travel would bring you to our small village?” Henrick called back. “There is nothing from here to there.” 

“We’re hunters and our quarry has gone to ground not far from here.” 

Sean, Dietrich and Olaf looked to one another with wide eyes. 

“Have we called down the devil on ourselves?” Dietrich hissed. 

“Perhaps it is the Lord answering prayers.” Sean frowned, not convinced by his own speech. “Either way, let them in Henrick. It’s no good letting anyone freeze to death tonight.” 

With one hard pull, the door opened under Henrick’s straining weight. Two men stepped inside, shaking off the snow at the threshold. They were both tall men, taller than Henrick though not by much. One wore a cloak as red as blood, his hair and beard glowing gold in the firelight. It was he who spoke, reaching out a broad hand to clasp Henrick’s wrist in greeting. 

“Thank you, sir.” His smile was broad and honest. “We would have started growing icicles if we walked on much longer.” 

The other man was thin, despite the added bulk of leather and rich green cloak. His hair was dark and he had more the look of a hunter, eyeing every dark corner. He did not speak as Henrick settled them at a table with two brimming mugs, what was left of the evening’s bread and the thick stew Joan had made that morning. 

There was a silent conference among the old men, but it was Sean who got up first and settled at the stranger’s table. 

“I’m Sean Vonderhoff, the priest of this village.” 

“Well met, Father.” The smiling blonde clasped wrists with him immediately. “I am Thor Odinson and this is my partner Loki Laufeyson.” 

“I’ll be blunt, sir. We had a death not three days ago in the village. It was unusual. The girl was bitten, two blunt punctures to the throat. Rumor has it that there are two hunters that travel, looking for this kind of thing. Are you they?” 

Thor looked across the table at his companion. Loki broke off a bit of bread, then shrugged. Though he sat closer to the shadows, the firelight sought him out. There was unusual scarring around his mouth, thick round dots evenly spaced above and below his lips. 

“We are hunters of the unusual.” Thor allowed. “There are many things that can kill a girl in the night. Ordinary men among them.” 

“No man could have done this.” Sean explained about the state of the body, pointed to his own neck and gesticulating wildly. “This must be the work of your quarry.” 

“Did she look afeared?” Loki finally spoke and his voice was surprisingly sweet. It ran down the spine like warm water and pooled comfortably in the belly of all who listened. 

“I...” Sean stared at him. 

“Her face, was it frozen in fear?” Loki prompted, seemingly unconcerned about having robbed the glib priest of his words. 

“No.” Sean eventually managed. “No, she looked...she was smiling.” 

“Ai.” Thor shook his head. “That’ll be the work of the one we seek. We have trailed him from Richenberg these past months.” 

“You must have a generous employer to send you forth on such a lengthy mission for a single target.” 

“No.” Loki smiled, a thin sharp thing that drew his scars into strange distortions. “We work for ourselves and our compensation is vengeance.” 

“We have no need of coin, in any case.” Thor cut in. “We have enough for what we require. It would be helpful though if someone could show us come daylight where the girl’s body was found.” 

“I can.” Sean agreed. “It was not far from the church.” 

“I would heartily recommend that everyone stay indoors until we have killed him. The beast hungers as we’ve run him down into starvation and he grows bolder like a wolf at the end of a lean winter.” Thor bit into the bread, fine white teeth tearing it apart. “He will not be so choosy in his victims as he once was.”

“Is there anything else we can do?” Dietrich asked, giving up on all pretense that the conversation was at all private. “Hang crosses or garlic?”

“Lies and superstitions.” Loki said softly. “All that you can depend on to save you is a sharp blade and a hot flame.” 

“Have you killed many of their kind?” Olaf asked, curiosity dropping the chill he had maintained from the time they had entered. 

“Ai.” Thor’s grin took a wicked turn as he reached into one of the many pouches that hung from his belt. He pulled out a long leather cord and from it hung two dozen wicked fangs. “One from every vampire. The cloak my brother wears is lined from the pelt of a werewolf.” 

“Is that warm?” One of the youngest of the men asked, clearly dazzled by the thought. 

“Yes.” Loki gathered the cloak further around himself. “But not particularly soft. And we never could get the smell of wet dog out of it.” 

“Do you remember how we ran him down?” Thor leaned across the table, closer to Loki. 

“I will never forget. You screamed like a girl when you tumbled into the ravine.” Loki purred. 

“Slander!” Thor laughed, head thrown back and the sound was merry. “Now I must tell it to defend my good name.” 

“Ai.” Loki tilted his head back towards the heavens. “Holly and Oak forfend that you shouldn’t have your way with the tale at every tavern we so much as glance upon.” 

“I want to hear it!” The young man called out again. The older men shushed him, but their eagerness for the story shone bright in their eyes. 

“And so you will!” Thor threw back the last of his beer. “If I may have the courtesy of another.” 

They all gathered closer around the fire as Thor settled with elders. Loki remained at their table seemingly untroubled by the cold seeping in through the walls. He didn’t stir as Thor spoke, but kept his eyes steady on his partner’s face through the entire long story of the chase and kill. 

“...and then we cornered it! Backed into her own cave. She lashed out one great paw and she struck me just here.” Thor thumped a fist against his chest. “I managed to return the favor with a great sweep of my sword, but it was not enough. She charged on. I would have died had Loki not jumped upon her back and rode her like a bucking stallion, stabbing into the skull with his wicked blade. Three times he sliced down and on the third, she finally died in a great heave.” 

“Truly the story alone is worth a night at our fire.” Dietrich clapped Thor on the shoulder, the meat of muscle under his hand hard as stone. “What brave warriors you both are.” 

“What say you to that, Loki?” Thor shot a look to his partner that seemed both jocular and challenging all at once. 

“I say that the hour is late and if we are to be of any use on the morrow, sleep beckons us both.” Loki said, perhaps a little sourly. 

“We have a bed.” Henrick got up again, this time reaching for one of the fat candles in it’s crude holder. “Come, there’s an alcove upstairs that lies just above this fire place. It’s as warm as you’ll be without sleeping in front of the flames.” 

The two hunters disappeared from sight, up the stairs with Henrick and the candle. 

“It could still all be lies.” Olaf muttered. 

“They asked nothing of us.” Dietrich shrugged. “We’ve nothing to lose and possibly something to gain.” 

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There was only the one bed and it was barely that. A worn soft sheet stuffed with straw and scratchy woolen blanket. They rolled their furs over it. Loki removed his thick cloak and drew it over the both of them to create an intimate cave of shared warmth. 

“What fools.” Loki sighed wearily as he wormed his hand under Thor’s tunic to press his hand to the long ugly scars that slashed over chest and belly. “You had them eating out of the palm of your hand.” 

“They are only ignorant because there is no one to teach them.” Thor chided. “And the priest knew what we were about well enough.” 

“Ai.” Loki agreed reluctantly. “He had a way about him.” 

“How has the cold treated you?” 

“As it always does,” his laugh was stilted and raw in the dark, “my cuts are healed and my aches gone.” 

“Miraculous.” Thor kissed the scarred lips, one palm settled heavily over one pointed hip. 

“There is no miracle to it.” The hiss in Loki’s breath ghosted over Thor’s face. “You know what it is.” 

“I don’t care what you call it, brother mine.” Nuzzling in closer, Thor could taste the frost on the thin skin of Loki’s neck. “You are blessed.” 

“Cursed.” Loki mumbled in rebuke, but it was too late. The heat rose between them and drowned out any argument they might have had. 

Neither of them had any great need for sleep, a few hours in languid doze enough to leave them rested for the coming day. When Henrick came up the stairs the next morning with a tray laden with fresh bread, two creamy pats of a butter and hot water steeped in wild herbs, they had already been awake for hours. Thor had settled in to sharpening stakes while Loki oiled the mechanics hidden by his long cuffs and generously cut shirt. Knives, garottes, poisoned darts and other nasty surprises lurked in every seam of his clothing. It hadn’t started out that way, but protections had a way of accumulating when you knew what lay in the dark. 

“Sean said he’d be by after he’d said the morning mass.” Henrick’s rumble slid through their industry as he set the tray on the floor between them. 

“The sooner the better,” Thor set down his knife and took up the steaming cup, “our work is better done in daylight.” 

“If you find the man that did this, you’ll kill him.” Henrick searched not Thor’s eyes, but Loki’s. 

“We have never left a beast alive.” Loki said cooly. “Why would we begin now?” 

“You mistake me.” Henrick, massive as bull, took a step backward. “I did not mean to imply that you would do less than that. Hillary and I were...it was a secret. She was only out so late at night to meet with me. I...I wanted to kill her murderer myself.” 

“You are not equal to that task, my friend.” Thor clapped a hand on Henrick’s shoulder. “Do not let it prick your conscience or your pride. The beast we hunt can overwhelm many strong men. It is only after many years of practice that my brother and I are able to do so at all. Even then, it comes not easily.” 

“We can bring you back an eyetooth, if it would sate your bloodthirst.” Loki bit into the crust of the bread, tearing it ruthlessly away. His teeth were tinged blue in the dawn light. 

“I need no trophy.” Henrick glanced warily between the two men. “I’ll send Sean up when he comes.” 

When he was safely out of sight, Thor turned on Loki with one eyebrow raised. 

“Brother, must you?” 

“What?” Loki chewed his bite of bread and set the rest of his breakfast aside untouched. 

“Why must you turn every friendly hand to a fist?” 

“Why must you turn every fist into a friendly hand?” Loki picked up one of his knives, slotting it back with a click to the holster in his boot. “We hardly need to make friends. Or have you forgotten that we’ll be gone again as soon as our work is done?” 

“Not forever.” Thor picked up Loki’s discarded bread, eating it in a few bites after a liberal application of butter. “One day, we will lay down our arms and make a home somewhere. It would behoove you to not entirely lose touch with making friends or we will be quite isolated.” 

“Do you dream of a farm still?” Loki watched him under hooded eyes. “Do you imagine me a wife making supper while you hunt the woods or feed chickens? It is a tidy, pleasant dream, but about as likely as sprouting wings. We’re going to die doing this. Maybe not this time or the next, but it will be the end of us.” 

“Your cheer always does start the day on a good note.” Thor took one of Loki’s hands in his, the long pale fingers shifting restlessly against his tanned and calloused skin. “I will not let it take you.” 

“That is an enemy even you cannot slaughter.” Loki shrugged. “I do not mind it. I have never carried a pretty picture of forever with me. I only aim to use what I have while I can to kill what would kill others. The rest of it is meaningless.” 

“Even me?” Thor teased, his smile returning. 

“Well. Perhaps you have a little meaning.” Loki allowed. 

Footsteps coming up the stairs, separated them. Their hands feel to their sides, but the connection remained. It always remained, sometimes the merest of threads and others as heavy as a chain. 

“Good morning.” Sean’s dusky head appeared in the door. “Are you ready?” 

“Ai.” Thor shouldered his heavy pack, aiding Loki with his own lighter bag. “Lead on, father.” 

“It’s not a long walk.” The priest assured him as they stepped out into the frigid day. The snow had piled up in the night making their going slow. Sean and Thor sank into the deep wet with every step though Loki mostly ghosted along the top. “Is that magic that keeps you so light, sir?” 

“No.” Loki laughed. “That would be Thor stealing the better portion of my dinner.” 

“You eat too slowly.” Thor returned the laughter, but the sound was absorbed by the snow and soon they were in silence again. 

“Here.” Sean had led them past the modest church and up into the woods. “It’s difficult to tell the exact spot, but it was close to this tree with the knot just so.” 

“Were their footprints? Did you see anything leading to or from the woods?” Loki sank into the snow, biting off his gloves to hover his hands over the covered ground. 

“Difficult to tell. There’s a popular trysting spot not far from here. Most pretend they don’t know if it, but there’s marks here more often than not.” Sean watched Loki with marked interest. “Is that spellwork?” 

“You’re too interested in magic to be a proper priest.” Loki straightened, flinging drops of snow from his fingers. “There’s not hope for it, we’ll have to go in and search. If there was proof here, the snow has swallowed it.” 

“As you say.” Thor reached into his pack and drew out the wicked crossbow that he kept there. With a quick flick of the wrists, two deadly sharp knives were in Loki’s hands. 

“I could come with you.” Offered Sean, standing strong as twin glares fell upon him. “I know these woods very well. It might shorten your search to have someone with knowledge with you.” 

The hunters held a silent conference over Sean’s head. 

“Very well.” It was Loki who made the final decision though his mouth bent down as if he wasn’t happy with the way his mind had turned. “But when we tell you to run, you must go. Do not be brave.” 

“My mother called me a coward for good reason, sir.” Sean touched the handle of his own stout knife. “Lead on.” 

“It is you who leads.” Loki chided. “Is there a cave or some other dark space where a creature like a bear might dwell?” 

“Not as such.” Sean thought, pursing his lips. “But there is an abandoned cottage, let by some woodcutter or another many years ago. Would that not do?” 

“It is good enough.” Thor clapped Sean on the back, the priest staggering under the blow. “Take us to it.” 

The hunters took to the woods in silence. The snow, hampered by the trees, lay not quite as thickly as it did in the village. Without the high piles to pause him, Thor moved as elegantly as his brother. It was as if their feet did not touch the ground as they wove their careful way through groves and thickets. Often Sean looked over his shoulder to ensure they were still at his back and not vanished like ghosts among the fallen leaves. 

“It’s just ahead.” He stopped at last, pointing through a clearing. 

“Stay here.” Thor commanded. 

“Look.” Loki said as soon as Thor came abreast of him. 

On the dilapidated porch of the cottage lay the carcasses of two deer, a boar and what might have once been a wolf. The stench of death hung in the air. 

“This is no vampire.” Loki blanched, reaching for Thor’s arm. “We must burn this house to the ground before whatever waits inside comes out to greet us.” 

“The evidence is before us that this is the work of a vampire.” Thor corrected even as he hefted his crossbow to perch on Loki’s shoulder. The steadiness aided his aim. 

“The evidence is faked. The girl, whatever her fate, was most likely killed by a spell thana vampire.” Hidden by the bend of Thor’s body, Loki conjured up flame to catch the head of the bolt even as Thor took aim. “Those corpses, the animals, they’re not sucked dry. They’ve been gutted. Entrails.” 

“A witch.” Thor growled, the bolt flying free, quickly followed by another and yet another. Each one Loki lit and each one landed in the rotting wood of the house. Two of them took before gutting out, flames licking up the sides of the cottage. 

An unearthly scream shook through the broken windows, scaring birds from the trees. 

“Father,” Loki said quietly, “I would advise you to run.” 

“My feet are stuck fast!” 

They turned as one to find Sean desperately kicking at living roots that curled up and over his shoes. Loki paled further and made to run to his side, but it was far too late. The roots had already entwined them all. 

“The fire!” Thor pointed. 

The flames sputtered then died out all at once as though they had never been. The front door to the broken cabin flew off its hinges. From its depths emerged a tattered tiny figure, shrouded in layers of blankets and matted hair. 

“Look how the mighty fall.” The thing spoke, its voice a thousand screaming ravens and quiet as a church mouse. “The slightest bit of subtle spell working. You should be ashamed Laufeyson.” 

“What shame is there in being bested by one’s better, old woman?” The smile Loki gave the thing was all razor edges and hate. “What chance do I stand against you?” 

“You remember what I think of your wagging tongue.” She laughed and a child wept inside of it. “You would do best to keep it inside your head.” 

“I will murder you, you raving devil!” Thor reached for his hammar still resting quiescent at his belt. 

“You and what army?” She sniffed, the ground heaving upward as she gestured negligently in his direction. Thor was pitched to the dirt where a thousand clinging roots pinned his arms to his side. “Always your arrogance, child and never any skill.” 

“What is she?” Sean cried out. 

“Human. Or so she was once.” Loki pressed his hands hard together. “So we all were once.” 

The witch threw out her arms, throwing off her rags. Her body looked chewed upon, beset by a thousand crawling insects, scourged by molds and lichen. Only her eyes were untouched, roving white and brown as if knocked loose in her decaying face. 

“She was a hedgewitch once.” Loki spoke as if she hadn’t said a word. “Beautiful and kind and knowledgable.” 

“Listen to him eulogize!” The witch was close enough now to lay her hand over Loki’s arm. He stabbed at her with his other knife. It embedded into her shoulder then quickly disappeared, absorbed by her army of voracious bugs. “‘tis your own gravesong you should be writing, boy. I would not be so foolish as to let you escape twice.” 

“You, madam, will never be a fool.” He leaned forward and over the sounds of protest from the priest, laid his lips over her forehead. 

“Are you ready to die, child?” She asked him, almost tenderly. 

“Not today.” He pulled away from the kiss, flecks of lichen clinging to his lips. “You taught me this. I think it only fair you know how successful your student has become.” 

The frost spread from his fingertips up over where their arms were locked. She tried to pull away, but Loki held her as fast as her roots held his feet. He kept her in that mock embrace as ice spread over her skin. It claimed her body, inch by inch, the insects and mold falling away. 

“Eve eva omni-” She recited, but too late for the ice reached her both and crawled inside.

Within seconds, she was encased in a block of ice as if she had been pulled from a winter’s lake. The magic that froze her seemed to override whatever had eaten her alive from the inside out. Her face beneath the ice wasn’t moldering or half-eaten. Only the face of a middle aged woman, her hair in matted locks about her face. 

“Here.” Loki extended down a hand to Thor, who grasped it readily. The roots broke away, robbed of their outside animation. 

“How did we not know what we hunted?” Thor touched the ice of her wrist. “So long we have searched.” 

“She blinded us, but in the end she did not fight hard enough.” Loki turned his back on the ice. “Finish it.” 

Behind Loki’s retreating back, Thor lifted his great hammer and brought it down upon the head of the witch. The ice shattered, spreading shards in every direction. Loki flinched at the noise, but walked on. 

“Little help?” Sean called out. 

“My apologies.” Thor came to the priest’s side and kicked at the roots around his feet until they fell away. “We did not protect you as well as we might have.” 

“I did not seek protection.” Sean searched the woods for Loki’s dark cloak. “What your brother said her once being human? Was that true?” 

“Ai.” Thor swallowed thickly. “Will you listen as we walk? Doubtless he has already gone ahead and will meet us in the village when he is fit to be among people again.” 

“I can always listen to a story.” Still shaken, Sean would have gladly listened to anything if it meant not thinking about all that had occurred. 

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_Listen well,_ Thor began, _this is not a lesson to be twice taught. This story lies only between Loki and I and the few who have needed to hear it. You will not speak it to any other. It is a private pain to be born where it will prick constantly at your heart. A reminder of what can be._

_We were children, far from here. We were brothers, two sides of a coin. Every waking moment, we were together at play or studying. We loved each other, but there was a splinter that became a sword between us. Jealousy on his side, arrogance on mine. I thought he would be ever content to follow, unaware that he wanted to lead._

_The hedgewitch, her name is lost to us both through some trick of hers or our own minds seeking to protect us, came at the height of our separation. I had gone on a hunt after an impossible game. Loki remained at hearth and home, planning for the day he would take my birthright from my undeserving hands._

_She was a good woman once. She knew how to be kind to a child just becoming a man. She taught him spells and weaves. She sang him siren songs. But as he grew closer to her, she sunk her talons deeper into him. I know not what glamor she used to hide her rot, but the day she showed him her true form was the day he knew that he had gone too deep into her thrall._

_‘See,’ she told him late into their friendship, ‘look upon me and know true power.’_

_‘That is not power, lady’ he said to her, ‘you have been taken by your own magic, used up as fuel for something beyond you.’_

_What else they may have said to each other, I do not know. That is all that he will relate to me. I do know that she tired of his words and clapped her terrible hand about his lips._

_A maid startled them then, coming in with food as bidden by her mistress. That she had seen was unbearable to the witch. She murdered the maid on the spit and spirited my brother away as if he had never been._

_When I returned home, I was told my brother had murdered a maid and taken off on foot. I refused to believe the tales no matter who told them. Not mine father nor mine mother could convince me. I went back out into the bitter winter with less on me than I have now. I tore apart the countryside and the woods. Every scrap of possibility or hint of maybe, I followed.  
I traveled beyond boundaries of heaven and earth. To this day I could not tell you where I wound up, only that it was forest unlike any other forest. It was danker and darker and full of hate. It breathed hot against my skin and froze my innards. _

_I learned about the beasts that stir in the dark. Some from lore, some that attacked me outright and still others that I caught glimpses of and let slip away in my single-mindedness. I honed myself into a weapon as I journeyed and every night I dreamed of my brother’s triumphant return home at my side._

_I do not know how long I ventured there. I can only say that I am older than I look. Far older._

_It was only by dogged persistence and chance that I came upon the fetid dwelling where the witch had taken her unwilling pupil. As a child, I would have charged upon her as soon as I saw her emerge from her hovel, but I had grown to be a man of much patience in those woods. The rising and the setting of three moons passed as I studied the witch’s comings and goings. Perhaps a better hero would have slain her, but I was no hero then. My brother was all I cared for. In my heart, I knew he was not dead. To take him from that place was my only goal._

_When at last the witch ventured forth on the fourth night, seeing some sustenance or audience with whatever god gave her power, I neither knew nor cared. I stole forth into that dark space. And found my brother trussed and bound-_

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“Lips sewn shut. She could no longer take my tongue, you see.” Loki fell into stride at Thor’s side as if he had never disappeared into the snow. 

Sean stared at the terrible scars around Loki’s lips and all too easily see where thick black thread had pierced fair skin and pressed his lips eternally together. 

“Ai.” Thor intoned, his hand falling to the hilt of his hammer. “I tore them ragged and bloody from his skin with my sharpest knife. He spat on the ground and said to me,” 

“‘Had you waited another day, it would be I rescuing you.’” Loki recited, if mirth had once come with those words it had long ago been stolen. 

“He had made his plans well. Perhaps he would have escaped and I been taken prisoner in the witches’ wrath.” Thor shrugged. “Who will ever know?” 

“And you were free.” Sean supplied, spurring the story to its happier conclusion. 

“We escaped.” Loki amended. “I will never be free. Each spell I work binds me tighter to a shared fate with that broken woman. That is what magic is, little priest, a gnawing hunger that eats you from the inside out.” 

“I tell you that it will not be your fate.” Now it was Thor who strode ahead, leaving the other two to walk together. 

“I’m sorry that that happened to you.” The compassion was lost in the snow and leaves, trampled over by Loki’s hard soled boots. 

“You cannot know what happened to me. Not even he knows.” 

“Couldn’t you...stop?” Sean asked, the question lingering between them. 

“No.” Loki shuddered. “I resolved long ago to set my blade into the heart of every beast and foul being that the hedgewitch called into existence. They are all her children or the children of her fellow witches. If it were just me, alone in that quest, perhaps I could rely solely on blades and trickery, taking my death like a man. 

“But Thor would not leave me. He had some idea that we would return home together. Those doors were long ago locked behind me and even were they to open wide before me, I could not walk through them. I spilled no blood with my own hands there, but I invited in a darkness that may never be washed clean from their halls. He insisted that he stay at my side, making what should have been a lonely search for venance into a quest for redemption. 

“It is my magic that keeps us both safe and alive. Not clever blade work or bravado.” The thin inevitability in his voice cracked and shattered. “Do not make such an error. Do not tell yourself such lies, little priest.” 

“What lies?” Sean blinked in confusion for he had been much touched by the declaration. 

“All of it. Thor’s story and mine. My excuses and his delusions. Telling the truth is beyond us both now. Only heed the moral: magic will make you a monster.” Three long strides and Loki was suddenly far and away. 

Sean ran to catch up, but soon lost sight of both brothers amid the trees. When he at last returned to the village, there was no sign of the them. He rushed to the tavern where already the fire was being built for the evening’s rest. 

“Have they come back?” He asked Henrick, eyes wide. 

“Who?” 

“The hunters.” Sean gestured up the stairs. “Have they taken their things?” 

“What hunters?” Henrick tilted his head. “Have you been drinking, father?” 

“No.” Sean took the stairs upwards two at time. The room was empty, the bed as if it had never been slept in and the breakfast tray long ago tidied away. He searched for any hint that they had been there, but found nothing. 

“We’ve had no travelers here for a fortnight.” Henrick called up the stairs. “Who would travel in such a storm? Only madmen!” 

There was a story Sean knew about gods that knocked on doors during storms. They sought hospitality and punished those who did not provide or gifted those that did. In the books he kept hidden under his bed , there were such stories. Trapped in those pages there was a mother of beasts, kind and cruel. There was an old godking with two sons, one stolen from the creche of ice giants and another forged in the heart of a warrior. There were old rituals in those books and he touched them reverently, the pages oil slick beneath his fingers. 

“Thank you, lords.” He whispered in the closeness of the attic room. “I will remember what you came to teach me.” 

Then he went downstairs to watch the familiar faces gather in their familiar rows arounds the fire. 

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“Wither shall we wander next?” Loki caught up with Thor, then folded the world beneath their feet. The woods became mountains, rolling heavy with snow in front of them. They were ever in winter these days. Once he had been able to always find a sunny patch for his brother. Now his magic would take them ever into the cold. 

“There are rumors of shambling horrors in the West.” Thor squatted down, examining some track or another. “There is game here. We could stay here tonight and feast around our own fire.” 

“You know I prefer our own company, I will not naysay you.” Loki put his fingers to the back of Thor’s neck under the heavy fall of his hair. 

“We’ve had her at at last.” Thor murmured, leaning into the slight touch. “Why do I not feel more satisfied? Why does bitterness linger on my tongue?” 

“Because there is no end to it. We are eternal wanderers now.” Loki went to his knees, heedless of the chill. He pulled Thor close, winding them together until they were no more than a red and green blur standing out against the white snow. “I’m sorry for that, my love. If I could, I would see you settled somewhere warm and bright as you deserve.”

“You are what I deserve.” 

“What a heavy curse you lay on your own shoulders.” 

“Nay.” Thor kissed him, hard and ruthless. One thin scar pulled and gave, blood flowing over Loki’s lips to stain his teeth a blue-red. “A blessing.”


End file.
